


Et tu, Cake?

by orphan_account



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cake, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mildly Cracky, Slow Burn, mash of comics and tv, probably out of character, which I haven't been catching up with, which means throwing out the majority of canon except for the characters and backgrounds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:00:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the latest series of breakdowns, Lex finally gives in to Clark's insistent griping and tries therapy. Baking therapy. Clark eats, or tries to eat the results, while cursing Lex's therapist to high heavens.No desserts were harmed in the process of making this fic.





	1. Blueberry Muffins with a hint of cinnamon

 

Clark stares at the plate in front of him. It’s the kind of Plate that wouldn’t be caught dead in the Kent family home, gold rimmed- hopefully, not real gold, you never know with Lex, and delicate floral patterns painted on the edges. It doesn’t look like anything Lex would own, either, though gramma Clark would be happy to have something like this in her collection of hideous cutlery. Three charred, charcoal...things sits ominously in the plate, daring Clark to touch them.

Clark pokes at one of the things. It _squelched_. He gulps, and looks up at Lex. Lex, in a business suit, covered in flour, with a bit of egg and something blue smeared on his left cheek. Lex, with the biggest, weirdest grin on his face that made Clark feel slightly terrified- and slightly hot under his collar, but he’ll never admit that.

“Uh, Lex? What’s this?” He asks, fork sinking into the blobby-thingie. It felt _soggy_.

“I’ve been thinking.” Lex answers, still looking at Clark with that odd intense look that causes Clark’s pants to tighten up around his..uh, at the most inconvenient of times. “About baking.”

“What.”

“As an outlet for all the pent up anger.” Lex shrugs. “My therapist told me.”

Clark is really starting to regret telling Lex to go to therapy and sort out his many, many issues. There is definitely something dodgy about the perky blond woman with the weird smile and pigtails. In defence, Lex _was_ verging on a mental breakdown to end all mental breakdowns before seeking out help(with a push from Clark), so there may be something good that comes out of this in the end.

“You should try them, you know.” Lex is still staring at Clark. “I worked really, really hard on them. Blueberry muffins, you know.”

Clark doesn’t know, since they don’t look like any blueberry muffins he has ever encountered. Ever. Not even the 99 cent one from the previous day that he bought from the Talon.

He cuts into one of them. Dark goo dripped all over the plate. It looks like it’s going to stain. With his enhanced hearing, Clark catches a gurgling sound from the cut muffin. Superpowers are not always helpful, but he is never happier with an iron stomach than at this moment.

The taste of cinnamon exploded on Clark’s tongue. Too much cinnamon. Like Lex poured an entire jar of cinnamon and made the muffins out of entirely cinnamon. Except there is something wet and squelchy, and he can bet that it was formerly a blueberry, now part of this monstrosity of a muffin. It has all the texture of slime. Enhanced taste is really bad as of right now. Something is burning, and it's not his heat vision.

His mother would _cry_ at someone messing up a muffin this bad.

Clark swallows the piece of muffin. The rest of them sat on the gold-rimmed plate. Taunting him.

“Is it good?” Lex asks. Clark gets the sudden urge to wipe away the smear of blueberry on Lex’s cheek. The only recognisable part of the fruit-turned-goo in the muffin(s).

Clark nods, and, as if to show his sincerity, stuffed the rest of the one cut up muffin into his mouth, and tasted regret.

“It’s...really goo. Thank Lex.” He forces himself to say, words muffled by the burned, cinnamon-filled muffin trying to murder his taste buds.

Lex smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, the kind of smile that he used to give out to Clark when they first met, before a series of unfortunate events(and a lot of lies) messed that one up.

“You know, I think this kind of therapy works.” Lex pats away the flour on his suit. “Even if it ruined my outfit.”

“That’s….that’s great, Lex,” Clark says. He’ll never enjoy anything with cinnamon in it again.

“You should come by next time, Clark.” Lex leans an arm on the table. “I’m thinking cinnamon rolls, you know?”  
  


Clark chokes. On the muffins. And on regret, but mostly on the muffins.


	2. Chapter 2

Clark decides that this time, they will meet up at the park. Neutral ground with other things to do. Things, other than eating up whatever Lex has prepared for him, probably blowing up his kitchen in the process. 

He feels bad about his friend’s cook. She looked traumatised after packing up the muffins Lex made last time, but there was no way Clark was gonna take those home with him. He’ll most likely bin them and feel guilty about binning them. 

The point is, there are other things to do at the park, that will distract both him and Lex from the food therapy. For Lex, it’s psychoanalysing strangers about their lives and various failures in life. For Clark, it’s mostly looking at the dogs people are walking, thinking about getting one, and never managing to get his parents to agree with doing so.(‘Dogs eat chickens around these parts, Clark,’ is what they would say). 

Unlike the muffins from last time, the cinnamon rolls looks almost decent. There is something deceiving about those little bastards. Clark thinks that he should break the news to Lex- and tell him that his cooking really, really sucks, even if it’ll hurt his friend’s feelings. 

“Uh, Lex? Why don’t _you_ try some, too?” Clark took one of the rolls, and offers it to Lex. Best way to tell him? Have Lex try some of his own food. See how he likes that.

Clark watches for Lex’s reaction as he bites into the roll(he watches Lex’s lips, too, but that’s another story for another day). 

“I think, it’s pretty good,” Lex says, after eating the entire thing. Clark thinks that either Lex’s taste buds have died in therapy, or Lex’s cooking skills have instantly improved overnight. He’ll bet on the taste buds thing. “A little soggy.”

Clark takes one of the rolls from the fancy little paper box Lex put them in. So far, so good.

He lifts it to his mouth and imagines little devil horns growing out of the pastry. He bites down.

Ever wondered what cinnamon and what feels like an entire jar of sugar burnt together tastes like? Clark never did, but he got to know, anyways. He tries his best to keep the grimace off his face.

Therapy, he tells himself. This is _good_ for Lex’s mental health, and therefore, Clark will face down with the cinnamon horrors, and he **will win.**

“It’s...great, Lex. You’ve _really_ outdone yourself from last time.” With the cinnamon and burning, Clark doesn’t say. He’ll have to eat an entire pie made by mom to wash the taste away. 

A couple walks by with a dog. Clark takes another bun, watching as Lex ate one as well. He decides that therapy has killed Lex’s taste in good food. There is no way someone with that much money will subject themselves to these demonic pastries unless they genuinely _liked_ them. 

“I wan tha-ht dog.” He tells Lex through another mouthful of cinnamon and death. 

“Look at them,” Lex gestures towards the couple. “They’ll be divorced within this year and the dog will probably end up at the pound.” 

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Lex.” Clark stares after the dog. It wags it’s tail. He’ll get one, too, one of these days. 

“It’s the truth,” Lex shrugs. “That kid over there? Failing college and definitely selling drugs he made in a sink.” 

“I’m concerned, Lex, how’d you tell someone is making drugs in a sink?” Clark asks.

Lex hands him another cinnamon roll instead of answering. Clark will bet his spaceship that Lex made drugs out of a sink in College, too. Maybe that’s where he learned his ‘cooking’ skills from. Clark’s wouldn’t be surprised. 

Lex shifts across the park bench, getting under the shade of the tree overhead(and closer to Clark, too). 

It’s almost like a date, Clark thinks. Enjoying(in his case, pretending to enjoy) food, looking at dogs(in Lex’s case, dissing random strangers and ruining Clark’s faith in humanity through psychoanalysis). 

He almost( _almost_ ) regretted having to split and go back home. 

 

**Lex gave him the rest of the rolls. Clark tried to feed them to the chickens. It did not work. **


	3. Chapter 3

Lana throws Clark a look that said ‘help me!’ 

Clark looks away and whistled. 

“I was thinking,” Lex tells Lana, while the girl’s eye twitched, “that as I am your business partner, you should be helping with my therapy.”

“By stocking up on your, um, baking, _here_? At the Talon?” Lana’s eye twitches again. Clark tries not to laugh. He really does. This is entirely Lex’s idea, of course, but he looked so sincere that Clark’s theory that Lex was doing this entire thing on purpose just to mess with them evaporated. And it feels nice, that Clark isn’t the only one suffering under Lex’s, uh, sweet tyranny(bad choice of words there, Clark).

“Of course. I believe that the clients of this,” Lex pauses, taking a sip of his coffee. Clark brings his mug to his mouth, so Lana doesn’t see his own grin, “lovely establishment can really get a taste of what we,” he gestures to himself and Lana, “have to offer.” 

“...right.” 

The plate of what seems like Salted Caramel Slices sits, ignored on the coffee table. Lex looks at Clark. Clark looks at Lana. Lana looks like she is trying to say something to Lex, but couldn’t get the words out. Boy, does Clark know that feeling.

Lex pushes the plate towards Clark. "You should try some, too." He looks really, really sincere. Scarily so. There is a freakin' _twinkle_ in Lex's eyes. _Really_ scary.

Lana is snickering at Clark now, since she had had to try one under Lex's insistence. Lets just say that Clark never thought a person's face could turn into a shade of...puce? He thinks that color is called puce.

Clark reaches out to the plate, using all his superpowers to keep his hand from shaking. There is almost a pavlovian response in him now, to automatically want to run away whenever he thinks of Lex together with dessert.

...Good thing is, Lex seems to have backed down on the cinnamon since the last few times. Which is great, since Clark can never even look at cinnamon rolls without wanting to run as fast as he can.

Bad thing is, he really did take the ‘salted’ part of salted caramel very, very seriously. Oh, God. It’s like Lex took the Great Salt Lake out of Utah, moved it to Kansas, and baked all of it with burnt caramel(nice to know that the burnt thing never changes), and served it up to Lana and Clark(and, possibly, to the rest of the clients at the Talon).

“...This is, nice, Lex. Pretty nice,” Clark takes a big gulp of coffee to wash away the taste of salt. 

“Very nice and...um, _salty_ \- salted.” Lana adds.  “I’ll, uh, add them. T-to the menu.” She sounds like she’s in pain when saying that. Clark can relate. But at least there is someone commiserating with him. 

Just then, Lex ups and leaves them for a business meeting, leaving Clark and Lana staring at the remaining slices of solidified salt. 

“Should I..” Lana asks, waving her hand over the plate. 

“You do whatever,” Clark says. It’s a lot easier being friends with Lana, when he no longer have that (embarrassing) crush on her.(A lot harder being just friends with Lex, after Clark developed a crush on him). 

 

Clark thinks that, if having to eat the stuff that Lex makes will make him feel better, y’know, mentally, he would do that. Hopefully, not for long, though. Otherwise, not even mom's food can save him.


	4. Hell’s Kitchen with Clark and Lex(the cookin’ special)

There is flour on the walls and on the floors, broken eggs on the once pristine counters and the smell of something being burnt wafting through the air of Lex’s high tech kitchen that would make any stay-at-home mom or dad cry from the damage Lex is currently doing to it.

“Is this how you make food every time?” Clark asks, narrowly avoiding flour being thrown at him.

“Yes?” Lex looks strangely...adorable, even, standing in a flood of flour, with his ruined Armani or whatever suit, floral patterned oven gloves on his hands, carrying a platter of...whatever in his hands. Of course, Lex himself would definitely not like Clark calling him that. 

Clark’s still gonna do it until Lex gets rid of the oven gloves.

Clark has decided that, if he is going to keep on ‘helping’ Lex with his baking therapy, then the least he can do to improve his own situation is to actually help Lex make something. Even if his own skills leaves much to be desired, it should at least be better than Lex’s. Right?

So he goes up and offers his help, thinking that if most of these days he is trying to finish off whatever Lex gives him, still feeling too guilty to throw that stuff away, then he needs to do _something_.

\---

Right?

Wrong.

**WRONG.**

Everything in Clark’s mind is screaming abort! abort mission right now! The stove is on fire. So is the oven. He may or may not have set it on fire with heat vision in an accident. He hopes that Lex hadn’t noticed, because fire shooting from his eyeballs is not normal.

Given that Lex broke half of the eggs, slipped and hit his head on the fridge and passed out right there on the floor, he may not notice the fire, or Clark’s heat vision, at all.

He might also need some more therapy. The physical kind.

“Oh, no, _nope, shit_ -” Clark scrambles to put out the fire(s) and get himself and Lex out of there, as soon as possible, without breaking anything else.

He honestly doesn’t know what gave him the good idea of breaking the sink plumbing so the water can put out the fires. 

The pipes bursts under pressure from Clark’s strength, a hole breaks in the walls and water sprays everywhere. Every. Where. 

Lex is so going to kill him when he wakes up, which will make him a hypocrite, since most of the mess was made by him. That is if Lex’s kitchen staff doesn’t off them both first.

Clark is halfway through carrying Lex out of the Mansion’s kitchen(desperately in need of a renovation) when his friend wakes.

“...Clark?” Lex rubs his head and winces. Ouch. Clark can see several bruises forming already.(And fractures, too, if he uses his x-ray vision).

“Oh, hey, Lex, nothing to see here,” Clark answers quickly. “It’s not like your kitchen have just been on fire and flooded.” 

“Clark, what _did_ you do to my sink?” Lex leans closer, peering from across Clark’s shoulder(dangerously close to set off unwanted reactions, too)

 

“...It broke on its own?” Clark sets Lex down, keeping an arm across Lex’s shoulders to prevent him from falling.

“You,” Lex stumbles again, “are never ‘helping’ me with this again.” 

**Clark thinks that’s a good idea. **

**Author's Note:**

> Something to get my writing muscles moving again after not writing in more than a year...  
> Just a note, most of my knowledge of SV came from the season 11 comics and a bit o' the show, and other fics I've read, so the characterisation might be a bit off haha
> 
> 30/4/2017- welp, uni is starting and I got jury duty :0


End file.
